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I agree with @babybeocksmom. I believe that a lot of babies may need to eat at least once at night and may only be able to go 6 or so hours (STTN definition). You can always try to start offering the paci or something when he cries at 3 but he may honestly be hungry.

@mrsjyw: sounds like your baby is doing awesome!! I think the biggest challenge is getting babies to fall asleep on their own and stay asleep.

My LO was born big (80th percentile) and was always pretty big despite being EBF. I didn't have to train or wean her from night wakings...it was kind of by accident. Around 2.5 months she was sleeping 6-8 hrs before waking for a feeding...this seemed so reasonable for her to be hungry so I would rush in and feed her as soon as I heard her on the monitor. Well, one time I has to use the bathroom first so I took a bitt longer getting to her..by the time I got to her room she had fallen back asleep and stayed asleep for another 3 hrs! So I knew she wasn't starving or she would not have fallen back asleep for so long!

I then realized that what I had been reading (Babywise and momsoncall) was true...some babies wake out of habit and if you give them a chance, they will fall back asleep. It's like when adults wake up in the middle of the night and just need to switch positions and fall back asleep. Sure, if you feed them, they will eat bc they aren't full, but they weren't necessarily waking out of hunger.

So, after that first night, I decided I would just be a little slower getting to her...and sure enough, she would just fall back asleep for several more hours. Sometimes she would get a little worked up (not full out crying but not just fussing noises)...and sometimes it took her 10-15 minutes rather than 2-3 minutes...but she always went back to sleep for another 3-4 hrs. After a few days of this she just stopped waking up and started sleeping 11-12 hrs...and as she got older her sleep increased to 13-14 hrs...then around 12 months she's back to sleeping 12 hrs.

So it may not be necessary to "sleep train" if you already had a good sleeper on your hands :). I know every baby is different but this is what worked for us

My LO was like yours until about 3.5 months, waking once a night around 2:30. We just went with it because it seemed reasonable at his age. He eventually started sleeping a solid 10 hour stretch around 3.5 months on his own. I'm thankful we haven't had to sleep train or night wean (though I'm hesitant to even write that because I don't want to jinx it). I'd keep doing what you're doing, mama!

This sounds about right for an almost 3 month old, and even into 4 months. I asked my pediatrician at our 4 month appointment since LO was waking at 12 and 3 to eat, and she said that LO should be able to go 8 hours without eating, but if she was waking after 6 hours, to feed her. So, we had to drop one of the "night" feedings (we did this through a modified cry-it-out sleep training method), and she gradually began to sleep 8:30am-6am on her own.

Your LO will not be able to go 8:30pm-7am without feeding quite yet, so if you are OK with the 2:30am feeding time then just let him be!

The other thing you can try is a "dream feed" - around 11-12ish, pick him up and feed him. He may not even fully wake up, but you should make sure he eats as much as he normally would. Then, his "STTN" stretch would be from 12am-7am, which may coincide with your schedule a little better. However, this may create the hassle of having to "sleep train" him if he continues to wake up at 2:30am since that is what he's used to.

For me, it was actually easier not to dream feed and to let LO wake up at 3:30-4am to eat, because then it meant she would sleep later in the morning. Otherwise she would be up at 5:30!

That's pretty much my LO's schedule at 15wks (7 to bed, up once during the night to nurse, up for the day around 7/730), and I'm not planning on having him night wean yet. I figure that I really don't mind the one night waking and he's become a more distracted nurser during the day so I want to make sure he gets enough calories.

How hard is he crying when he wakes up in the night? Sometimes LO will wake briefly, and even let out a pretty hard cry, and then just go back to sleep. Most of the time she goes back to sleep in less than 5 mins. If she keeps crying longer than that, I know she is hungry and we get up for a diaper change/feeding.